To me, the biggest "feature" which I never would have expected to miss is the inability to immediately retry a battle. I remember being very excited when I learned that some games had a soft reset by holding the shoulder buttons while pressing start + select. It would make sense that cutting out this process entirely should make me happy.

I don't think anything breaks my immersion, sense of accomplishment, or desire to do better quite like unlimited, instant retries. I died ~187 times in The Last of Us on normal. The game claims I beat it. In my head, I feel like the ending I EARNED involves Joel being dragged away in the grill of a truck. The same for FF13. I beat it, we're heroes Snow! HEROES! Nothing can stop us! Noth- oh crap I got one-shot by a behemoth again, retry - NOTHING! HEROES!

What if a game had random battles, but you had fewer in a given area the higher your level was? and if you were at a certain experience level, you wouldn't get any battles at all -- thus, you can't grind at all, and you stop having regular battles when they quit being a threat?

Logged

o/` I do not feel joy o/`o/` I do not dream o/`o/` I only stare at the door and smoke o/`

What if a game had random battles, but you had fewer in a given area the higher your level was? and if you were at a certain experience level, you wouldn't get any battles at all -- thus, you can't grind at all, and you stop having regular battles when they quit being a threat?

Didn't Lost Odyssey basically do that (or did it forget about the whole, turning off encounters part of it)?

I think the overall mood and flow of the game really decides if random battles work or not. Obviously the old way of loading and having a fight is very cumbersome, but I'd love to see more games transition smoothly from battle to exploration. That married with a fast paced, challenging, and fun combat system could lead to some very innovative games.

I think the overall mood and flow of the game really decides if random battles work or not. Obviously the old way of loading and having a fight is very cumbersome, but I'd love to see more games transition smoothly from battle to exploration. That married with a fast paced, challenging, and fun combat system could lead to some very innovative games.

You mean like Xenoblade Chronicles (and to a much lesser extent, FFXII).

What if a game had random battles, but you had fewer in a given area the higher your level was? and if you were at a certain experience level, you wouldn't get any battles at all -- thus, you can't grind at all, and you stop having regular battles when they quit being a threat?

Didn't Lost Odyssey basically do that (or did it forget about the whole, turning off encounters part of it)?

The only problem with Lost Odyssey is that, if I remember correctly, battles only gave you decent experience for one or two levels.